The Zeitgeist

I guess it’s a good thing that Thanksgiving is just around the corner… This just arrived from Amazon this afternoon: Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.

Now, if there’s one thing my close friends have come to know well, is that I love, love, love to cook. And one of my favorite things to experiment with is my smoker (the Weber “Bullet”); I’ve been smoking meats for several years, and in fact there’s a brisket curing in the fridge at-this-very-moment that will be soon transmuted into  my very first home-made pastrami probably tomorrow. (yuuuum…..)

Traditionally Charcuterie is often most closely associated with pork (something I don’t eat), but it’s not all about pork. Charcuterie is really about salting, curing and smoking meats. I’ve just started leafing through it, but I can already see a whole bunch of recipes that are going to have to be tested a few (dozen) times. The Pastrami was already in progress before I saw this book, but the first thing that caught my eye is a recipe for duck prosciutto which looks simply fab’. (I had duck prosciutto out in SF a few weeks ago for the first time …it was amazing).

This is going to be a fun fall… and since I do (almost) all of the Thanksgiving cooking… my guests are going to help me taste-test all the goodies.

Tags: Charcuterie, DIY, Food, gourmet, meat, pastrami, sausage, smoker